Back Yard Gardening – From My Backyard
November 24, 2015
Healthy Lifestyle, Philosophical Kings Harbor, kingwood, Sunrise, texas 1 Comment
Spent the early morning down on the dock near our house….Stunning sunrise. This morning was my good for the soul effort! I do feel better. Took my camera and decided to use one of the photos to grace the header on my blog. Hope you enjoy the images.
Small resized image of a stitched together image of several photos.
Another shot a little earlier as the sun was coming up.
I love mornings like these!
TTFN
Bishop
November 20, 2015
bananas, Dessert, Healthy Lifestyle, Humor, Recipe Banana Bread, home grown bananas 1 Comment
What do you do when 8 or 10 of your homegrown bananas ripen all at once? everyone knows that it is Banana Bread time. My wife dug out the recipe for “Aunt Toni’s Excellent Banana Bread” for me to use…..problem is, it is not my sister Toni’s recipe, it is our sister Denise’s recipe….how did it get named for Toni…..That is a bit of a story.
July 19th, 2012 was my sister Denise’s 60th birthday. Toni….the other sister, requested that friends and family send Denise birthday wishes along with a favorite recipe….Denise is an awesome cook so the recipes would be well received. The flyer and recipe that Toni sent out explains the “misnamed” recipe.
Toni’s recipe sent to Denise read;
” This is a recipe of a food gift that Denise and I have made for years to give to family and friends. A few years ago Denise’s son Sean asked me for my banana bread recipe and he has continued the tradition. Recently he was telling Denise about my “Excellent Banana Bread Recipe”. She wanted to set the record straight that the recipe came from her. We had a good laugh, because the recipe named had changed to “Aunt Toni’s Excellent Banana Bread”.
“Aunt Toni’s Excellent Banana Bread”
3-4 ripe bananas
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup melted butter
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup chopped nuts – optional
Mash bananas and add sugar. Stir in the other ingredients. Pour into a greased loaf pan. Bake one hour in a preheated oven at 325 F. Cool on a rack then cover with plastic wrap…….if it survives that long! Makes one large loaf or two small loaves.
Ripe bananas ready to mash. In the center, the seed area of the endocarp, the flesh has a bit of a golden color.
Mixing with the sugar after mashing. The golden center flesh is still visible.
Ready to pour into the greased loaf pan.
Final product….this variety of banana is very creamy -it still is evident in the finished bread….Yum
After I made the bread I contacted both sisters so we could laugh again…
TTFN
Bishop
November 16, 2015
Beekeeping, Humor, Philosophical bee keeping, poison ivy, poison oak Leave a comment
I rescued a bee colony from a tree that broke off during a storm. The tree snapped at a large knot hole, splitting the colony into two sections. When I arrived the bees were calm and well behaved in the section that was on the ground. To get a better look into the cavity holding the bees, I pulled some of the vines from the trunk section. Here is part A of the lesson; try to identify the vine species prior to handling it, especially if you are highly susceptible to poison ivy or poison oak!!!!!! I am highly susceptible and I am now paying the price.
Lesson 11 – it has several elements. Part A above.
Helpful tips;
B. Thoroughly wash with hot soapy water, any skin surface that may have come into contact with the vines. Touching body parts with hands coated with the plants oils leads to a spreading of the rash. Trust me – sensitive skin parts should never be touched! Nuff said.
C. Contaminated clothes, like my bee suit, should be washed in hot water. Sometimes it may require several washings. I am putting my bee suit back int to wash for a second go…… Yes, I am dealing with a second round of rash breakout.
D. Aveeno works well on the rash. I have also found, at least for me, a very hot shower, as hot as you can physically stand, blunts the itching for 4-5 hours.
Unfortunately, I seem to discover lessons the hard way! I will keep you posted on my future adventures that become lessons for others.
Suited up – the end of the section is open to the colony. Bees were buzzing before I secured the end. Suit is in the wash…..again
TTFN
Bishop
November 12, 2015
bananas, Beekeeping, Gardening, Healthy Lifestyle bananas, bee rescue Leave a comment
The weather has finally cooled enough that I had to cut the stalk. When I inspected the bananas this morning I noticed that the ripening process has sped up. Our friends and neighbors will receive some treats.
The bunch includes a cluster that never matured. I hope next year I will manage to get both varieties to produce.
I hope to finish up the bee rescue today. I have developed a more simple option that could have been completed on the original rescue day. Rookie mistake and hindsight is always 20/20!
Breaking news- part two of the bee rescue has been postponed until tomorrow. Details following the fishing report.
TTFN
Bishop
November 10, 2015
Beekeeping, Healthy Lifestyle, honey, Optimism Leave a comment
Out of the blue…. Sorta – Troy, an acquaintance who is hosting one of my empty top bar hives called last night with a lead on some bees. This morning I made connection with Don at a large machine shop off of Highway 59 about 25 minutes from the house. Seems that over the weekend a large trunk sized branch broke off and fell to the ground. The piece in the ground was packed full of bees. The tree snapped at a knot that appears to have been the access hole to the hollow tree, an obvious weak spot.
The piece on the ground housed the upper portion of the hive colony. The bees were calm and thickly packed into the cavity and comb in that half. The photo below is after three days on the ground and may have been cleaned up some during that time.
While waiting for the chain saw Don fired up the man lift and we were able to get a better view of the top stub of the cavity…. not a real good look but not bad. On Thursday I will go back and we will hang a hive body with some drawn comb near the opening. We will have better access on Thursday so I can look into the cavity directly. Based on my limited knowledge it looks like the tree snapped off below the main portion of the cavity. My fingers are crossed that we have the queen and some brood.
I made an uneducated guess and cut the trunk about 30 inches above the break….. looks like I guessed good. There was a small opening but the cut was above the cavity. I loaded the cut segment on my carry rack, wrapped it in plastic and headed off to Kingwood. The chainsaw cut end came unwrapped in the drive. At every stop I could see a few more bees escape. Oh well.
I arrived at Troy’s house to unload and the bees were humming – a good sound, the sound of a buzzing hive…. makes me more confident that I have the queen and attendants.
I stopped by my house to rewrap the log before heading off.
We created a necked down outlet pointing directly to an opening in my top bar hive. We sprinkled a dash of lemon grass oil at the entrance to entice the little buggers over. My top bar has three bars of drawn comb to help the transition. Fingers crossed! I will install a feeder as additional enticement.
My wife commented that it looks like Christmas came early……. I was like the little kid that couldn’t wait……. Yes, I was excited!
An interesting note, Don at the machine shop was anxious to find someone to rescue the bees, not kill them. He is aware of the plight of bees and has noticed fewer and fewer on his 2 acres of land. One of the workers at the shop, Rick, has 7 acres up near Clevland, 25 minutes north of my home and had the same concerns. I was concerned when I pulled into the machine shop as a Pest Control truck pulled up when I did. My heart sank. Turns out he wasn’t there for the bees but wanted my contact info for future opportunities to rescue bees. My faith in mankind is elevated. These good old boys deeply care about the environment. I love it.
TTFN
Bishop
November 10, 2015
bananas, Beekeeping, Gardening Leave a comment
Phase 1 of my learnings is a vinegar from one of my beers. My ultimate goal is to use my backyard local honey to make a Honey Wine Vinegar after making a mead using my honey. If you are familiar with my blog here you may have seen references to my Beer Log at;
This is a crossover blog, phase 1 uses my Oak and Bourbon aged Imperial Stout. After much searching I found that home brewers also have experimented converting beer to vinegar. I drink my Imperial Stout’s slowly so I figured I could afford to experiment.
The start, a bottle of Bragg Organic Raw Unfiltered Apple Cider Vinegar – the key ingredient – this vinegar contains the “Mother”. The Mother is the source of the bacteria that converts the alcohol to vinegar.
I am using a half gallon jar for phase 1. 16 ounces of vinegar and several bottles of my stout. Dang it, I had just a little too much beer so I had to sit back and enjoy it while waiting for Monday Night Football.
The half gallon jar in the background and my sample in the foreground. This may produce a tasty and inky dark vinegar…. Fingers crossed.
Next steps – shake it to aerate the mix, cover with cheesecloth, as it needs oxygen to complete the process, hide in a dark and 70-80 degree location for a couple of months and then sample.
Side note; the Slide Ridge Honey Wine vinegar I bought is wonderful. I have some toasted bourbon soaked chunks sitting in the bottle to see if it becomes more than wonderful. I will give it a few months.
From the garden today? A handful of green beans that went into today’s chicken vegetable soup. Houston has almost cooled off enough for soup. I have another 15+ bananas hanging, the sugar snap peas are climbing and some confused strawberries are blossoming and producing.
These are in one of my strawberry towers. They look like they will be yummy.
TTFN
Bishop
November 2, 2015
bananas, Beans, Gardening, Healthy Lifestyle, Tomato Growing banana, garden snacks, green beans, Matt's Wild Cherry tomato Leave a comment
It is actually a little more impressive than that. It was pretty much all concentrated during the past two weekends! The garden is very soggy. The beet seedlings have been beat down but I think they will survive.
I took a cruise through the garden around 7:45 this morning after meeting my daughter at the gym….. She ran a 5 mile race in the rain yesterday morning, I drank coffee and tried to stay dry. The green bean vines are healthy and green but not much to pick. I snacked on the few pods ready to pick while checking things out – they were sweet, if that makes sense for green bean pods!
There are stil over 20 full sized green bananas hanging on the plant, waiting to be cut off and ripened inside. The miniature, teeny, tiny Matt’s Wild Cherry tomatoes are still setting and producing. I brought in a handful to have with my morning eggs.
Cherry tomatoes and a few ripened bananas. Time to cut a few more bananas today! Very sweet and very tiny tomatoes and sweet and creamy bananas!
TTFN
Bishop
October 22, 2015
Beekeeping, Healthy Lifestyle, honey beeswax, coconut oil, lipbalm 2 Comments
Someone asked me a few weeks ago, “What do you do with all the beeswax from your honey extraction?”
Good question. I have saved almost all of it. I have tried to segregate the lighter cappings wax from the more yellow comb wax. With my stock of wax decided to try my hand at making lip balm – move over Burt’s Bees, Bishop’s Bees is moving in.
I don’t intend to “bee” a threat to his business. Next spring I will have table at some “Farmers Markets” in the area to sell my raw local honey and to have some value added products to sell. Hopefully to draw some more folks in. The lip balm may be one of a few products. I have plans for honey straws, more creamed honey of several flavors and possibly some honey wine vinegar.
I made batch 1 of the lip balm today. This is a test batch. I weighed out 1 ounce of light beeswax, 2 ounces of organic coconut oil and 1/2 tsp of honey. All melted together and then divided into some small tins and a couple of tubes. All went pretty well. The only issue was the reluctance of the honey to blend into the melted oils and wax. More research to do.
I intend to hand these few out, gather feedback and adjust going forward.
Coconut oil to start with.
A look at some of the differences in color of beeswax.
A few of the first batch samples.
I will get some feedback and modify the recipe going forward. I am wanting to find a way to bring the flavor and aroma of honey out a little more for batch # 2.
TTFN
Bishop
October 19, 2015
bananas, Beans, Beekeeping, Fall, Gardening, Healthy Lifestyle, honey, Strawberries, Tomato Growing beans, bee keeping, peppers, strawberries, tomatoes, vegetables 6 Comments
The surprise success with plantings this year has been the banana “plant”….. Not really a tree but most folks refer to them as trees. This was the second year after panting the first corms. I was given one that should have produced “Manzano” bananas but has yet to fruit. The other was a mystery….If Marcelino’s father told me I must have not understood or heard. The unknown variety has produced a very nice large bunch and along the way I learned a lot about the growth habits of bananas. An internet search leads me to believe that the bananas are “Pera”.
Once the plant matures a stem growing inside the pseudostem (trunk for lack of a better term) emerges from the top. As it curls downward it has what looks like a purplish heart looking bulb, an “inflorescence”. Looks like tightly wrapped paired leaves.
Female flowers beginning to expand.
“A stem develops which grows up inside the pseudostem, carrying the immature inflorescence until eventually it emerges at the top. Each pseudostem normally produces a single inflorescence, also known as the “banana heart”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana#CITEREFStoverSimmonds1987.
It was interesting watching the top two leaves open up and expose the flowers. The first that are exposed are the female flowers that develop into fruit. Each time the purple leaves open it exposes another tier of flower bracts. As the bananas fill in, maybe 8 to as many as 20 tiers the heart now begins to produce male flowers that appear to be useless….once they appear, they dry up and drop off. At first I thought I had a problem but learned that was normal.
My hanging banana storage in the garden.
Once the banana has plumped up nicely and doesn’t seem to be enlarging I have been whacking off three or four at a time and allowing them to ripen indoors. They will stay nicely on the plant until the weather turns cold. After that I will cut the entire stalk and hang it in the garage to ripen slowly.
Several ripe ones with the most recently cut.
Indoor hanging storage
Gardening activities have included building up a raised bed by adding more compost and mounding it up for planting strawberries. The cucumbers are done but the dang asparagus keeps sending up new shoots, not many but enough to snack on while weeding. The Matt’s Wild Cherry tomato plant has begun producing again….they are small but tasty….pea sized to a little less than cherry sized. My Poblano pepper plant is churning out tons of dark green peppers.
The beginnings of my fall strawberry planting’s. I will ad at least 50 more plants.
Teeny tiny Matt’s Wild Cherry tomatoes.
Hmmm – the beginning of some green beans….they better hurry – the air is cooling.
My bees are now residing elsewhere but I am making more local contacts that are willing to host hives for me. I have a home for the top bar hives about 5 minutes from my house – Yee Haw. The productive Langstroth is too far away but it is in a good home. I am aiming for 10-12 hives next year and possibly 20 the year following. The new Texas regulations allow me to sell at Farmers Markets now….as long as I do not exceed 2500 pounds per year….that is a lot of honey!
This will give you an idea how big the slabs of comb are. This one had an ear on the left hand side broke off.
Side note; I bottled the Honey Blonde Ale a few nights ago…..made with MY honey. It will be awesome! The color was perfect, a hint of honey flavor but not too sweet.
TTFN
Bishop
October 9, 2015
Beekeeping, Healthy Lifestyle, honey, Top Bar Hive bottling honey, marketing honey, Texas Honey Law 2 Comments
Actually, I have been legal for a long, long time! As of September 1st of this year I can legally sell honey at Farmers Markets as long as I meet the State of Texas’ labeling requirements. The key change for small producers, those selling under 2,500 pounds per year, requires a label indicating that the honey was not bottled in a facility inspected by the Texas Department of State Health Services.
This is an example label added to the bottom of a jar. I snapped this iPhone photo at the Liberty County Beekeepers meeting this week. This little law change has many small producers breathing easier. To sell retail or wholesale, honey must be bottled in a licensed and inspected honey house/facility. That cost is beyond the means of hobby producers. Many small producers were technically breaking the law prior to September 1st. Small producers could always sell direct to the customer. A caveat, the honey must have been sold by the producer or immediate family member. That was how is I peddled my honey.
My haul from the northern hive was small but very tasty. Most of the honey was bottled in 3/4 pound plastic Queenline bottles. I made a little larger bottle as payment to the hive’s host. About 13.5 pounds total for this trip. The hive is now in winter mode and the honey remaining is for the bees.
I just love the feel of the bottle getting heavy as it fills, the wonderful aroma that escapes and catching the sweet drops on my finger as the valve closes. I do lick my fingers and then rewash before proceeding! Yes I do!
The honey bear actually holds the same weight as the white topped bottles.
I have the catalogs out, dreaming about next spring and deciding how big my hobby will become. At a minimum I will have my existing Langstroth and two top bar hives. Let me amend that, I am building two “half” top bar hives this weekend. I can use them as Nucs or if arrangements can be made, as a rescue hive for cutouts or for capturing swarms.
TTFN
Bishop
From My Backyard 